Finding My Niche

Substitute teaching is a job with many pros and cons. I love that I can take days off whenever I want, that the work day is short (8 hours-tops), and that when the day is over, whatever it was, "it's not my problem". It can, however, also be a stressful job. You never know exactly what type of situation you are walking into and classroom management is rarely easy. You have to be "on" every minute of the day. A lot of my assignments so far this year have been in special education classrooms, and I have discovered that these are my favorite assignments.

Yesterday I spent a delightful day in a Post High School classroom. This is where students attend when they've graduated for high school. It provides services until they reach age 26. The student were odd and quirky, at times a bit rude (burping was the name of the game), but eager to please hard working. We had a lot of laughter throughout our day. We worked on academics and life skills, went to job sites, and worked out at the Y. But more than anything, these "kids" had a warm and loving place to spend their day and work on skills and habits to help them be independent in life.

Sometimes I think we make life too complicated; we make God too complicated. The students I worked with yesterday, or in the Autism class last week, or the basic classroom the week before, don't usually contemplate great questions in life. They face struggles and challenges that we can't imagine. But you know what? Most of them also face life with a smile. I saw this so much in Argentina with Andres. No one in that school knew more pain, yet no one knew more joy, and I know that was not a coincidence. Andres loved God deeply and fully, in a way that I don't know if I am able to. He wasn't hindered by my doubts and distractions.

I hope I get more jobs working with the special students in the community around me (One of those teachers already has me reserved for a day in October and a day in November). Those students are so much more open to life, open to love. It's there that I have found my niche as a sub, giving them their space to be their quirky selves, supporting them through challenges, and guiding them through their day. They have so much to teach us, if we take the time to listen.

Master Plan

The sub job I have this week is a little slow, so it didn't take me long to read a short biography titled "It Is Well with My Soul: The Extraordinary Life of a 106-Year-Old Woman" by/about Ella Mae Cheeks Johnson. It's a quick read, but the kind of book that you want to slow down and savor at the same time.

Several quotes jumped out to me as I read and I thought, I have to remember that one. The first quote was, "I just wanted to see the wider world, and think about my place in it. When I look back over the course of my life, I realize I never had a master plan; I let the Master plan." This really struck me because so many times I can relate to that. I definitely don't have the life I thought I would when I was a child, and in the past 18 months I've done a lot of thinking about where my life is going and where I want it to go. And the truth is, even though I have goals, they remain vague, and I don't have a 'master plan' per se. I know that I want to honor and glorify God in all I do. I know that I want to be where he wants me, where I can use the gifts and talents that he has given me for his glory. I want the very best thing that is available: to know Christ- so I want to know him more deeply and more fully. And I want whatever leads me to those things. Which doesn't exactly answer a lot of the logistical questions in life... which is, I suppose, why I can rest, knowing that even without a master plan, the Master has a plan. What a comfort that is in this time of transition and wondering!

This is the other quote that really struck me: "The most important lesson I've learned over the course of a lifetime: not just surviving, or getting along, but being useful. Too often we remember, "Ask and ye shall receive; seek and ye shall find," and we believe all we have to do is ask. When we don't get the response we seek right away, we think our prayer has gone unanswered. Patience is essential. Heaven is always here, within us, if we have the patience to discover it. Sometimes we pray for things that we aren't, in fact, supposed to get- things that are bad for us. Maybe "no answer" means we need more time to discover that answer on our own, or to find out that another choice is possible. Not having a prayer answered right away doesn't mean He doesn't care; maybe He thinks this is just not the time. Maybe there's something else in the future that will help. Compassion is patience in its essence. As it says in Psalm 27, "Wait on the Lord: Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart."'

Wardrobe Change

Transition: movement, passage, or change from one position, state, stage, subject, concept, etc., to another; change.

I'm switching my wardrobe today, changing out the summer clothes for the fall. It's not a task I like. For one, I like summer clothes. For another, I like warm weather and I'm not one of those people who gets excited about sweatshirts and football and big pots of chili. I realized this week just how much shorter summer is in Michigan than in Buenos Aires, and how much cooler fall is here. I wore shoes yesterday for the first time (other than running shoes) since I got off the plane in June and promptly grew blisters. Lovely. And after just three years in Bs As, something in me says that spring should be just around the corner. But it's not, and that is part of transition. Which brings me to the third reason I'm not so excited to switch my clothes today: my wardrobe has been a puzzle of moving parts since Christmas (when I started moving items home) and I growing tired of trying to predict which items I'll need (or want) in the weeks or months ahead.

At the same time, I look for the positives in the change: more cups of tea, wearing scarves, discovering more clothes that I can donate, less shaving. It's the little things in life, no?

Better than free

I'm fresh off my first day of subbing, well, my first day since January of 2004! I spent my day in an elementary CI classroom- for the non-educators out there, CI stands for cognitively impaired, which is the new term for mentally impaired. The day was 9 kids, 2 aides, me and some vague lesson plans. I was suddenly very grateful for the week I spent filling in the PreK class last year at BAICA- it gave me a few ideas for what we could do and how we could structure our time. The day went as well as I could have hoped, I suppose, for a challenging assignment, and I found myself thinking about fishing on the way home.

We all know the line about teaching a man to fish instead of just giving him a fish, but what I realized today is that many people around the world don't need either one, the lesson or the fish, they just need the opportunity to fish. Many, many wonderful family and friends have helped me out this summer, whether it was a meal or a ride, a tank of gas or a place to stay. And all of that has been absolutely incredible. But it still doesn't compare to the feeling of being able to work, to do something you know, and to contribute something to the world. The few dollars I made subbing today or prepping roses last week (long story) are meaningful to me because afterward I am tired- I have done something called work, and it was good. I look forward to that first paycheck when I can go buy some black work shoes (I wore through my last pair on the cobblestones of Argentina), not simply because I need the shoes, but because I will have worked for them. The work is the gift, and despite the price of blisters, aches, pains or frustration, it's still better than free.

It makes me think about those who live day in and day out in poverty, who struggle to survive in developing countries. We send aid, but how much better would it be if we created opportunities to work? Opportunities which paid enough to lift them out of poverty (even if it raised the price of our t-shirt), opportunities that gave them something meaningful to do, something that they could take pride in. Imagine a world where farming and harvesting paid the bills, a world where lettuce was more expensive but those who picked it could afford to buy it. And yes, some of those people will need to "learn how to fish", but whether they're learning or they already know, it doesn't matter if they don't have the opportunity to do it.

The good is always the enemy of the best

I love love love the book My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers. I've been reading it pretty much nonstop since 2001. I took a year off in there somewhere to read a different devotional, and quickly went back to it. One of my favorite quotes is from the May 25th entry, and though I know it is not even close to May 25, this quote and idea have surfaced again in the last few weeks of my life:

The great enemy of the life of faith in God is not sin, but the good which is not good enough. The good is always the enemy of the best... Many of us do not go on spiritually because we prefer to choose what is right instead of relying on God to choose for us.

Wow. "The good is always the enemy of the best." How many times have I seen that proved true? There are so many things in life that are good, they just aren't God's best for us. One thing that has really struck me this week is that even though I am living in an affluent area of the United States, I do not cease to be surrounded by need. What's tricky here is that it's not financial need or very often physical needs. It's not as obvious as an Argentine orphanage or slum. But there is still a cry from people who have so much, and yet they are empty. Their good is falling so short of best. It's so easy when I am here to start to believe that somehow things that are good- technology and clothes and even experiences like travel- will somehow satisfy me, instead of trusting in God's best and remembering that many of the happiest days of my life were when I actually had the least stuff.

But good isn't just material stuff. Everywhere we turn we are making decisions and choosing paths. And at every juncture there is a God who loves us deeply, more than we could know, and He knows what is best for us, even if it doesn't look that way to us. The truth is, the very best thing in all the world is to know Jesus. And whatever in life brings me closer to Jesus, that is what is best for me. That's the goal, always. Know him more. Because we cannot worship or glorify that which we do not know. The more I know about Christ the more I can praise him, trust him, and adore him. That's why we consider it all a loss for the sake of knowing Jesus Christ, because there isn't anything better.

Kingdom Without Borders

I've been back in the US for 2 months now, and most surface things that once shocked me no longer do (save the gigantic "medium" beverage I had at Hardee's last week). It's amazing how small the world can be, meaning that no matter which country I'm in, I do spend most of my time in a very small geographic region, easily forgetting that the world continues to live and breathe across large expanses. I was in the library about 2 weeks ago, sifting through my favorite section: New Nonfiction. So many gems to be found there, and this trip was no exception. In addition to walking away with The Eastern Stars (the story of sugar and baseball in a small Dominican Republic town), I also picked up Kingdom Without Borders: The Untold Story of Global Christianity. Though still 70 pages from the end, I can't recommend it enough.

Throughout its pages, Miriam Adeney tells countless stories about believers across the world, primarily in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. I found her story telling scattered at first, and it took me a good bit to get into the book, but now I can't put it down. Reading the stories of what God is doing across his Kingdom encourages and inspires me as I hope and seek to return abroad for the 2011-2012 school year. I read about Chinese believers sending missionaries back west on the Silk Road, about native missionaries in India and Brazil, about Iranian Christians reaching out with the gospel despite the government. Adeney never implores her reader to get involved in global missions, never nudges towards giving- she simply tells the stories, and through them, one cannot help but want to get involved in either sending or going. And the truth is, the global church is growing at an astonishing rate. It makes me wonder if the traditional western church is going to be left behind.

I've never been a big reader of missions books or many of the modern fad-like Christian books out there, but this one I love. Simple, unpretentious, and compelling, it gets me excited about educational mission opportunities I might discover when the job search process begins. It gets me excited to learn another language, to observe and learn another culture, to teach kids from so many different backgrounds. And it reassures me that whether or not we personally can see the fruit, God is indeed doing a mighty work for his Kingdom in my generation.

A Wandering Mind

I find my mind wandering often lately; I can't seem to concentrate through an entire conversation, especially if it's not one-on-one. I'm not sure where my brain goes necessarily, sometimes to the people and places of Argentina. I assume this is all part of the transition process- not being able to keep my head in one time and place. I don't know if anyone else notices this wandering (hopefully I'm not that out of it). In some ways I feel lucky to be in this state of great transition. I think that in many ways, we all live in a state of constant transition to some degree or another, and I just happen to be fortunate enough to really notice and consider it. Transition, like so many other hurdles in life, causes us to reach out for what is true and steady and sure, and more than ever I am able to realize what the one constant in my life really is. God's presence is as near and real now as it has ever been and his consistency teaches me to lean on him in deeper ways. I am continually amazed at how he is not only Mighty God, but also Everlasting Father, how God, Todopoderoso, can also be my Wonderful Counselor and Prince of Peace. When life holds more questions than it does answers (and really, when does life ever really hold many answers?) if gives us the privilege of taking the light for the step we're on and trusting that by the time we need to take the next step, the light will shine on it. Until then, when my mind walks away, mid conversation, sometimes I will do what I can to bring it back, and at others, I'll simply let it float, being in whatever place and with whichever people it needs to in that moment.